The Forevers

by Chris Whitaker

  ‘I’m eighteen. They’ll take me away after. If there’s an after.’

  Mae pressed a hand to the cool of the door, then fished through the keys. She tried a couple before she found it.

  They stood facing each other.

  ‘Theodore told me.’

  He looked down. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘You were with him, the night … Abi. Also said he loved you.’

  He looked up. ‘He said that? We haven’t … I mean, not yet. We haven’t said that yet. I haven’t said that to anyone.’

  ‘You should go and tell him, before it’s too late.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’

  She glanced at her wrist, he followed her eye.

  ‘Tell me about Hunter Silver.’

  He kept his eyes on the tattoo. ‘I just … I just wanted to scare her. To let her know how it feels, you know, each day you wonder what it’ll be this time. And if you make it through, if no one speaks to you the whole day, then that’s a win.’

  Mae looked at his face, properly, the tightness around his mouth, his eyes, the pain of it.

  ‘It was you that night, you attacked me outside Abi’s house.’

  He swallowed. ‘I take photos, Mae. I’m one of the night people. My mother, you’ve seen my house. I stay out as much as possible. I know … what you do, Mae. I saw you break into Hugo’s place. I didn’t tell Sergeant Walters because fuck Hugo Prince. But Abi … you can’t take anything from that family, Mae. They’ve lost enough.’

  She stepped aside. ‘Go.’

  ‘I can’t leave Theo.’

  ‘Take him with you. There’s not time, Sullivan.’

  He shook his head.

  There was a lot Mae could have said then, about Theodore choosing God over him, but when she looked at him she could see that he knew all of it already, and it was enough, the stolen part of Theodore was more than enough, maybe more than he ever expected to find.

  ‘He’ll confess,’ Sullivan said. ‘After the concert, he’ll come down here and tell Sergeant Walters everything. I can give him that. He’ll stand in that hall and sing and his parents can have their son. Because after, the way they are, they’ll have nothing.’

  He took a step back inside the cell.

  She took a deep breath and heard the door close on him. ‘What if there’s a fire?’

  He laughed, it came out almost like a cry. ‘Haven’t you heard?’ He pointed to the scar tissue on his cheek. ‘In this town, I’ll burn anyway.’

  Upstairs she found Sail sitting at Sergeant Walters’s desk, files spread out in front. They used the old copier to take what she needed.

  And then she found the tapes. Mae knew Sergeant Walters had pulled them. The security cameras only covered the high street and marina, one at each end.

  On his desk she saw a photo of his father, the two of them together.

  She thought of that greyed face again, the smell still in her nose, in her mouth, in her hair.

  Sergeant Walters would join him soon enough.

  ‘You seen this?’ Sail said, handing Mae another file. ‘Hugo’s mother – a neighbour reported her missing.’

  ‘Small town. And maybe too hard to believe a mother could walk out on her son.’ She thought of the bruises, of Hugo’s belief she was somewhere better. Mae hoped it was true.

  It was as she put the file back that another caught her eye.

  Mae opened it.

  As she read, she felt the blood drain from her. ‘Oh, Jesus. Oh no …’ She whispered the words to herself.

  Mae thought of Sally.

  Of Abi.

  Of everything she thought she knew about the world.

  Sail read it over her shoulder, placed a hand on hers and squeezed.

  She put the file back. But the name was burned into her brain.

  OLIVER SWEENY

  35

  Mae used her last morning shift to watch the tapes.

  Three weeks back, she propped her tired eyes open and saw the town of West, the people ambling by.

  The old skywatchers, the young summer couples. Children ate ice creams, their parents walked behind, hand in hand. Something about the perfect normality of it helped Mae to breathe.

  There was a timestamp in the corner. On the Sunday she watched hundreds march up towards the church, old men in suit and tie, young boys in smart trousers. She tried to pick out Abi but the cluster was too tight. She did see Jon Prince, and in a perfect pause she captured the way he looked over at Luke Manton. Mae wondered if business had come between them, money or something equally worthless. People still cared about their standing when they fell.

  A few came into the store, dropped off their movies. She stamped cards, took payment, let people borrow whatever they wanted. The due date a day past Selena.

  An old lady cried, took Mae’s hand and told her sorry.

  Across the street, Felix pressed a sign to the glass.

  THE REVEREND IS HOME.

  She wondered if the heart attack had brought Felix closer to God, or closer to the doctors that pumped his father’s chest.

  Mae stood in the open doorway.

  She saw a couple of men on ladders, stringing bunting and fairy lights. From the top of the high street all the way down to the marina.

  Mr Cleeves swept the pavements.

  West was readying for the last days. The Final. The school concert. Stella’s play. She’d seen adverts in the local newspaper, the excitement was muted among the adults, palpable in schools. West Fashion had posters in the windows.

  END OF THE WORLD SALE.

  The owner was Trixie, and she’d placed her own advert, telling anyone that was struggling they could come in and hire anything free of charge. Mae watched a couple of boys walk out carrying suit bags.

  She turned back to the tape, saw Felix struggling with a box of papers, then trip and send them flying across the high street. Mae laughed to herself.

  Another hour, Mae finally saw the girl on her screen.

  ‘Abi,’ she whispered, as she slowed it.

  The clarity was good, she could see Abi’s solemn face as she walked up, her head low as she disappeared into a shop.

  Mae couldn’t see from the angle exactly which shop.

  She watched in real time.

  Fifteen minutes passed before Abi walked out. She clutched a piece of paper in her hands. The paper was dark with bright lettering, too small to read but striking.

  Tears streaked down Abi’s cheeks.

  And then she was gone.

  Mae held her breath as she rewound and froze the tape on Abi’s face.

  Crying.

  She knew she was close, she felt it then. All the wrong turns, the misdirection, she was closer than she’d been before.

  Mae strained to see the shop, but still could not. So she counted, down from the salon.

  Seven down.

  Mae ran out into the street and up to the salon.

  The shops were busy, the cafes hadn’t yet run out of coffee.

  She pushed by a couple of summer people, the last in town.

  Mae counted carefully, one by one as she passed them.

  Seven.

  West Pharmacy.

  She found Lexi eating lunch beside the tennis court.

  ‘You mind if I sit?’

  Lexi sighed, like she wanted to be alone.

  Mae sat anyway.

  Two boys played on the court, grunting and sweating as they powered the ball back and forth. Mae recognised one of them as Callum.

  Lexi wore a stylish sunhat.

  ‘How’s the head?’

  ‘Itchy.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘You ever got drunk and done something you regret?’

  ‘Pretty sure that’ll be my degree.’

  Lexi took a drink from a sports bottle. ‘I keep seeing girls with tattoos and they smile at me, and then I remember I have one too. I mean, I’ve always been in a gang. It used to be the hair, with Hunter.’


  ‘We’re not a gang. We’re just … human.’

  Lexi glanced over at the court. ‘He likes me to watch him play. You know his parents came here because the tennis coach is some former player.’

  ‘Part of the Sacred Heart gifted.’

  ‘It’s so boring. Back and forth.’

  Lexi took the hat off, scratched her head and caught a look from Callum so put it back on quickly.

  ‘He doesn’t like it?’ Mae said.

  ‘He makes me keep it on when we … you know.’

  Mae bit her lip, then saw Lexi begin to laugh so she laughed with her.

  ‘You want to tell me why you came to sit here, Mae?’

  ‘Your mother –’

  ‘I can’t get you drugs. Believe me, everyone thinks I can, but I can’t.’

  The sun crept from behind the old school building.

  A group of younger girls sat in a circle and played some kind of game Mae couldn’t work out the rules to.

  ‘Abi went to the pharmacy. The day before she … the day before it happened.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You knew?’

  Lexi sipped her water. ‘I was helping out that day.’

  ‘She was crying.’

  ‘A lot of people come in crying. Or angry. Or just so sad. They want something to help them sleep, or something to help them smile. Or just something to take away all the feeling they’ve got.’

  ‘That’s what Abi wanted?’

  Lexi shrugged. ‘There’s a room at the back, you can go there and talk to my mother. If you don’t want the whole town knowing your business.’

  ‘Abi went in there?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You think your mother would tell you what she wanted?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even now she’s dead?’

  ‘Principles, Mae. My mother has them. I think maybe they skip a generation.’

  They looked up when Callum started to walk over, a towel draped over his shoulders.

  Callum saw them together and frowned.

  ‘I thought her mother could get me drugs,’ Mae said.

  Callum shook his head, then slipped an arm round Lexi and they walked away.

  The pharmacy was empty.

  Mae walked down each aisle and looked at the myriad of placebos. Anything of use was locked away now.

  Lexi’s mother was tall and striking, and she had that look on her face like she was more than used to teens coming in with fake illnesses and trying it on without a prescription.

  She had a white coat, smooth skin, almond eyes.

  In the gene lottery, Lexi had won the jackpot.

  Mae was so distracted she bumped right into Jeet Patel.

  His bag fell to the floor, the contents spilling.

  Mae bent to pick up a bottle, saw a dozen warnings printed all over it. Hydrochloric acid.

  ‘Damn, Jeet. Are you building a bomb?’

  He laughed as she passed him the bottle. ‘I’m making the costumes for the concert. Distressed is in right now. Wait till you see us, Mae. Just …’

  ‘Fabulous?’

  He smiled widely.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘I have to pick up sequins from Trixie.’

  Mae held the door for him. She wondered what it was like, that eternal optimism.

  ‘Mae,’ Lexi’s mother said. ‘How’s your grandmother?’

  ‘Still with us.’

  No smile. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Mae cleared her throat, her shoulders dropped a little. ‘Abi Manton came to see you.’

  The woman’s face softened then, her eyes filled with tears so quickly Mae was taken aback.

  She sniffed, her composure returned quickly. ‘You know I can’t tell you anything.’

  ‘I do. I just … I need to know she was okay. She tried to call me, I wasn’t there for her.’ Mae swallowed. ‘I think maybe she needed me, and I let her down.’

  ‘You can’t blame yourself for this.’

  ‘Do you think she killed herself?’

  The question hung long in the air. Outside, the street lost its colours. Mae held her breath.

  ‘I can’t answer that.’

  Mae breathed out slowly.

  ‘But I do know that whatever Abi was going through wasn’t your fault, Mae. Do you have someone you can talk to? Lexi tells me there’s a school counsellor.’

  ‘I just … I can’t sleep any more. And I know that’s a thing, right? I see it in the newspapers. No one can sleep. I don’t know what I’m saying.’

  Lexi’s mother reached out and took her hand, gave it a squeeze and smiled gently. ‘It can’t be easy, your situation.’ A smile. Pity.

  Mae steeled herself, turned and walked towards the door.

  And then she stopped deathly still.

  The display, the bank of leaflets.

  One stood out far.

  The same leaflet Abi had left with.

  Mae picked it up slowly, her throat dry as she took in the bright lettering.

  ABORTION.

  36

  She was supposed to make pizzas with Stella, meet Felix at the church, hang out with Sail and the Forevers at the beach.

  Instead Mae found herself sitting opposite Luke Manton as he tried damn hard to drink himself into the afterlife.

  The bottles towered.

  She saw through to the immaculate kitchen, to Lydia Manton’s part of the home.

  She wouldn’t tell Luke that his daughter had been pregnant.

  There was a chance he knew, but loyalty ran deep, it was all Mae could offer to her friend now.

  ‘I’ve almost made it, Mae.’

  His beard was long, his hair greasy and wild. In his eyes she saw nothing but a vodka fog.

  She had more pieces of Abi’s story, but they were scattered so far she couldn’t bring the picture into any kind of focus.

  ‘It’s been a long month.’ He slumped back, drank some more, slurred his words. He was done crying, there were no tears left, no life left to hold onto.

  Morales was muted on the large flat screen.

  ‘I need him to fail. But if he doesn’t, then on July the twenty-first I’ll follow my little girl over the cliff. You think there’s something noble about suicide?’

  There was no answer she could give that would lessen his pain, or make more of Abi’s death, so she went with the truth. ‘Yes.’

  He raised the bottle to the screen. ‘Ten years I’ve listened to this guy. Ten years he’s tried and failed. We hear the names, see the lab coats, the giant metal rockets and the probes and bombs and goddam paint. I try to be a man, but my fate’s decided by people more powerful than me.’

  He sat among hundreds of photos of his daughter, then looked up at the arched ceiling, through the panes of glass that opened to the dark sea. ‘Ocean Drive,’ he said. ‘I used to ride down this road on my bike when I was a kid. We aspire. We push and drive and hope to make it, then when we do we take a look around and wonder exactly what it is.’ He sniffed, then reached for another bottle, broke the cap and peered into the clear liquid. ‘I thought the people here were better, because they had more. Their lives were … more.’

  Mae watched as he sloshed the bottle and vodka spilled over his jeans.

  ‘But you know what, Mae? Mortals and gods. The Greeks told it, The Iliad. Trojan War. The gods have no morals. They see something they want and they take it. And it ruins lives, but they don’t care.’

  He drank. ‘Walk down this road, look in every house and what you see is nothing more than an act. To seduce you into believing you’re worth less. They maintain power by diminishing your worth. True equality, that would be the real anarchy.’

  Mae thought of his neighbours, of Abi and the lure of fitting in. The man she was seeing. It hit her suddenly, hard, so cold she shivered.

  ‘Jon Prince,’ she said, out loud. It clicked then, Luke attacking him in the street. Hugo talking about his father taking what he wanted.

&nbs
p; Luke Manton closed his eyes, like the name alone was painful to hear.

  ‘You knew,’ Mae said.

  He nodded, eyes still closed. ‘She said she loved him.’

  37

  They ate breakfast in their spot, side by side, in silence only heightened by birdsong.

  ‘Tomorrow they launch Saviour 10. They’re calling her Faith. She’ll blast off from Florida.’

  ‘Have you practised your dance?’ Mae said.

  ‘I know every step. Every spin. Every thrust.’

  ‘Thrust?’

  ‘I’m gonna slay,’ Stella said, then took a big bite of toast. Mae reached across and dabbed butter from her sister’s cheek. It was the only time she was reminded of her tender years. They could talk relative velocity and kinetic energy, but still Stella could not eat without making some kind of mess.

  ‘Did you ever think maybe I wanted to butter my cheek?’

  Mae walked to the edge of the cracked patio, stepped onto the grass and breathed the summer air.

  ‘There’s no planes,’ Stella said as they walked to school.

  Mae looked up at the quiet sky.

  Lady kept pace with them, occasionally sneezing.

  ‘I think she’s allergic to you,’ Stella said.

  ‘That’s not a thing.’

  They passed an old couple, eyes on the sky as usual, a dog walker. Stella stopped to pet the collie, knelt in front of it and looked as happy as Mae had ever seen her.

  Lady growled.

  Stella told her not to be jealous.

  ‘It’ll be okay, you know,’ the dog walker said.

  Stella looked like she might cry, so Mae placed an arm around her. ‘What shall we do this summer?’

  ‘We’ll go to Hawaii and wear grass skirts.’

  ‘And I’ll play the ukulele while you sing about rainbows.’

  At the gate Stella hugged her for longer than usual.

  ‘Dress rehearsal today.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Be brilliant, Stella.’

  At Sacred Heart Mae arrived to a cluster of kids. She found Felix at the back.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘The caretaker didn’t show. The gates are locked.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Candice said.

  Hunter shrugged. ‘We wait for my dad.’

  ‘Or we go to the beach,’ Hugo said.

  Mae wondered if he knew about his father and Abi, guessed he didn’t, not the detail, just that his father was the kind of man who did what he pleased. Mae had spent the night lying on the roof watching the stars. She reasoned it was likely Abi had jumped. Maybe she hadn’t told Jon Prince she was pregnant, maybe she’d stolen Hunter’s necklace and pawned it for the cash to take care of the problem herself. There were many variables, but the only constant was that Abi had found herself in an impossible situation.